Twitter sues Elon Musk asking US court to hold him to $44bn (£36.5bn) deal to buy the social media company

Twitter has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk after the billionaire said he was pulling out of a $44bn (£36.5bn) deal to take over the company.

The social media company asked a Delaware court to order Mr Musk to complete the merger at the agreed $54.20 per Twitter share.

In its court filing, it said: “Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he – unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law – is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away.”

Mr Musk, the world’s richest man, said last week that he was terminating the deal because Twitter violated the agreement by failing to respond to requests for information regarding fake or spam accounts on the platforms, which is fundamental to its business performance.

His representatives said Twitter had failed to provide data and information requested by Mr Musk to enable him to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts” on the social media platform”.

“Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr Musk incomplete or unusable information,” they said in a statement.